blazer's domain
blazer's domain
NOTICE 2/OCT/24: Just for the record, I think this page is due a rewrite; I could stand to make some parts less empty and tone down the assumption of familiarity. It will come eventually...
Each different roller coaster that you've ridden will count as what enthusiasts call a "credit". Generally, no one ever takes these that seriously. But you can gauge how far gone an enthusiast is by how willing they are to queue an hour for that Wacky Worm.
I live in Indonesia, not exactly a hotbed of coaster action, which is kinda limited to North America, Europe, and East Asia. Nevertheless, through my years I've amassed a coaster count of 23. This is all of them.
My first two coasters were at Dufan (Dunia Fantasi, "Fantasy World"), Jakarta, part of the bigger Ancol, since the 60s a mostly government-owned complex of recreational facilities. Dufan (opened 1985) is, as far as I can tell, the first implementation of the Western theme park in the country.
My first coaster happens to be the very first coaster built in Indonesia as far as the Roller Coaster DataBase is concerned. Alap-alap consists of a speedy run through tunnels and shrubbery. I had fun, as evidenced by my on-ride photo where I have just the most joyous expression.
"Alap-alap" is "falcon" in Indonesian, despite this train very clearly being a caterpillar.
My second ever coaster was a bit of an escalation. Halilintar ("lightning") was a foreboding sight, vertical loop staring at your face. But I happened to be just tall enough so in I went.
It's a simple Arrow corkscrew, there's like 4 identical others. Fun, if not a little headbangy. I have a soft spot for this guy for sure. I can pinpoint the start of this fascination to the moment I went through that loop. It's probably the coaster I've ridden the most, I ride it one or two times every time I visit.
A coaster in Jungleland, a park out in the planned city of "Sentul" in the mountainous countryside. As of today, seemingly declining, seeing as they've closed more rides than opened new ones.
Harvest Time is a run of the mill Zierer kiddie, specifically their Force One model. The queue on this was always way too long, maybe on account of it being the only coaster in the park for a while. The final turn into the station gives very sudden strong laterals. The tall stacks of sacks are kinda neat. Moving on!
Nothing happened in 2015.
A Zierer mall coaster, out on the other side of the city from me. I don't remember why we were there, and I really hope I didn't make my mom go here just so I could ride this.
This ride has been defunct since 2020, so it's like a double ghost now...
This and the next one are from a trip out to East Java. I literally remember nothing about the ride experience.
This one's actually very interesting. So a Wild Mouse is a type of coaster, its signature traits being the one car trains and verrry tight sharp turns. Almost all of them are also made of steel, the sole exceptions being three Wild Mice commissioned by Hopkins and Pearce of Luna Park Sydney, after they saw a Wild Mouse visiting a world fair in America.
One of them is defunct, one remains in Australia, and one ended up here somehow. I'd really love to know how, if I was an intrepid journalist type I'd go asking. Hit me up if you're a reputable news source so they'll want to talk to me.
Ride itself's quite good! Very smooth experience actually.
This one's fun. It appears to be a tiny version of the Mr. Freeze coasters at the Six Flagses. It's a nice ride; fun launch, positive G's on the turn into the spike, and then some hangtime on the inversion going back. In my opinion, in fact the best coaster in tanah airku, Indonesia.
Oh boy 2017. My trip to Japan and Fuji Q Highland, home to awesome rides, views of Mt. Fuji, and normal wait times!
Stylized as FUJIYAMA, all caps, Latin letters. Made by TOGO, and was the tallest coaster on Earth at the time of its 1996 opening at 79 meters (259 ft). The ride is a bunch of hills, turns, and ill-advised attempts at slick maneuvers done before the era computer simulation. The infamous finale consists of several banked curves in rapid succession that end up feeling really weird. Quite fun overall! The best part's the first drop and the view of Mount Fuji just before it.
"Fujiyama" is an alternate, rarer reading of the usual name for Mount Fuji, "富士山" (Fujisan). I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to convey; it could be humorous, antiquated, or whatever
Oh, and at night it's got gamer lights! I caught glimpses of this from afar whenever we were out to get dinner. Lovely Matsuya eel.
Bisha, bisha, Takabisha! A Gerstlauer Eurofighter, with its signature one-car trains and beyond-vertical drops. Takabisha had the steepest drop on Earth (world records were kinda this park's thing) from 2011 until 2019 when an exact clone with a 0.5° steeper drop was built in America. What assholes.
I had a sort of obsession with Takabisha before I would ever imagine getting the chance to ride it, as an even tinier kid browsing videos of it on YouTube when it was relatively new. That drop just looked mind bending, and so finally seeing it in real life was the hypest shit. The whole park as well but this guy even moreso.
Bisha provides a good dose of all things. It has a launch, plenty of inversions (including the elusive, never-before-seen banana roll), the notorious 121度, and some pops of airtime. A little rough, but not problematic. Good ride.
I can't really tell what the ride's theme is. Shogi? It's something antique; there's like woodblock print-style art and seal script Chinese all around. I don't know. Bisha bisha Takabisha
高飛車 (takabisha) is translated on Jisho.org as "high-handed; domineering; on one's high horse". The word is made up of 高 (taka), tall or high, and 飛車 (hisha), "flying chariot", the equivalent of the rook in shogi. The word originally refers to a shogi strategy involving moving the hisha to the highest place in your territory, whatever that means. This, being an aggressive strategy, resulted in the meaning today.[source] It also wraps up as a nice roller coaster pun because individually, the characters in 高飛車 can mean "high", "fly" and "car" respectively.
ええじゃないか、ええじゃないか...
This is my number one. Eejanaika, made by S&S, is a 4th Dimension coaster. It's got seats that hang off the edges of the track and can rotate a whole 360°; that's the 4th dimension. Only three 4D's exist (I'm not counting the free spins) and they provide a very unique experience. Eejanaika is the second after X in America, more or less the prototype, and by that point they just went ham with it.
Eejanaika is fucked-up-element after element. From the very first turn out of the station, right before the lift hill, the seat rotates backwards, almost upside down, before bringing you back up. This is no ordinary ride. After the lift, descending the first drop, where you're completely face down, it flips you around on your back, so fast and so near to the ground that you're not even sure what the fuck is happening when you suddenly feel like you're on a launching space shuttle as the train hits the bottom.
With every element after, you're experiencing powerful forces in bizarre positions and consantly switching places, like you're teleporting. You'll find yourself suddenly facing the front and then the back, above the track then under it, on the left and then the right, total disorientation. Finally... finally, you absolutely slam into the brake run, where it decides to rotate you 90 degrees to face the floor rushing past. Bow down.
ええじゃないか; "ええ" (ee, dialectal form of いい ii, "good") + じゃない (janai, "not") + か (ka, question marker), translates as "ain't it good" or "who cares". But more specifically, it also refers to some kind of period of festive social unrest in response to the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Oh, and if you're thinking "wait, what about Do-dodonpa?", guess what! It was closed! They were in the middle of refurbishing it and it opened a fucking week after I went! Since August 2021 it's been closed again for investigation after some incidents and I hope it opens again, if this thing dies before I get to ride it I will be Miffed.
If I had a nickel for every rare ass Wild Mouse I've been on...
Okay, so Wild Mice are usually family coasters, and those don't tend to do loops. Only five looping mice were ever built by Japanese manufacturer TOGO and this was one of the last two. Today, only one remains.
This coaster was in the charming Suroboyo Carnival Park (an obvious front for the Foundation), a sort of night carnival for Surabayans to chill in. This ride I remember quite enjoying. Again, unexpectedly very smooth.
The ride very sadly died with the entire rest of the park in 2021 after already declining attendance + COVID hit them hard. I'll remember it fondly.
"Bledek" is Javanese for "lightning".
At Berjaya Times Square, an indoor mall park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. No, not Super Sonic Odyssey. That's not even real.
I'd had my wee eyes on this one for a while already, being a cool looking, big coaster reeelatively near home. Emphasis on "-looking", visually it's still one of my favorites. Something about the purple and orange really does it.
The ride's fine! It features another elusive element, the Jojo roll, which is just a slow barrel roll before the lift hill. Besides that I'd say the best part's the quite forceful loop, which also goes around a walkway.
As an aside, I have bitter memories of another visit to this park before I was tall enough to ride, despite that being my objective. I proceeded to spend most of my time on "Ooort's Express", an SBF Visa Musik Express. More or less a carousel at 2x speed, which is to say, not very fast. I still find those rides quite relaxing, like a massage chair of sorts.
My most "productive" coaster year yet.
Jungleland's second coaster, which opened wayyy late. Something about the soil and the support beam stability. It's a Zierer family coaster. Does its job!
14 to 19 are from our trip to Hong Kong! We visited Ocean Park first, which frankly was not the best experience and only partially because I had a bad eye infection, about which I will not go into detail. The park layout was mind-boggling and shade was scant, so we spent a lot of time walking up and down hills in the sun, lost. But also, it's situated on a big rock surrouned by beautiful ocean.
Hair Raiser is my first and so far only B&M credit. This happens to be known for being one of their rough ones, as a manufacturer with famously smooth rides. It's got this rattle throughout the whole thing. It's pretty fun, and provides very nice views of course.
An Arrow Dynamics looping coaster. From what I can gather, it's your average Arrow looper? No one seemed to feel very strongly about it. I didn't feel very strongly about it. Kinda hurt, as Arrows may, view was good, there was a lift hill back into the station which was amusing, the color scheme's interesting, logo looked a lot like Hot Wheels', yeah.
The Dragon is now DEAD as of 2021 since Ocean Park is doing some kind of huge revamp. Fly high, friend.
A mine train, but with some ridiculous views. It had the ridiculousest views of all three, very close to the ocean. That's really the most noteworthy aspect I think. That structure it did the helices around was also kinda weird I guess.
This ride was also put down along with Dragon in 2021. Rest in pieces.
Didney! By this point my eye infection had calmed down after a visit to the doctor. I proceeded to celebrate with a visit to Didney! Wearing an eye patch no less
This here's their Big Thunder Mountain. Apparently the layout on this is comparatively really boring but (spoilers) it's got goddamn style: The second lift hill surprise-drops you backwards when the cable snaps, and after some reverse action you end up in a cave where a bear fella accidently lights some dynamite, launching the train outside and presumably dying instantly. Cool ride.
Ooh, this one's potentially controversial. To the uninitiated, we have two facts here:
So, this coaster, and coasters like it, are roller coasters technically, but maybe not in spirit, to some people. You could approximate the experience with like a pirate ship. I choose to count it, because I'm desperate, and I think I have the right to be. I'll draw my line at the coaster being gravity-powered.
Anyhow, this is a nice ride, visually . If you like swinging back and forth 100 degrees or so, you'll like this. Theming's the best part, naturally.
Well, it's Space Mountain, same layout as Disneyland's, 'cept it's got permanent Star Wars theming. I thought it was pretty hype. Maybe just from the feeling of "oh man I'm at Didney". Hey Mystic Manor is some good shit by the way, and I got to experience it completely blind, very grateful.
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This, #21 and #23 are at Trans Studio Cibubur, a big indoor mall park that opened in 2019 and is technically my new home park, going by proximity. It's decent; there's a science center with giant bugs and a gravitron, there's a neat action show, and there's this:
A Maurer spinning coaster. It takes place in a cool space room with planets and shit. Cool ride! No complaints; roughness might hurt a bit if you don't brace yourself maybe? My first ride was completely fine but the second go, on another visit, beat the heck out me for some reason.
Here's a quaint one. A Caripro Batflyer, a suspended family coaster featuring weird bicycle-type seats, a few were made around the world but most are defunct. This is one of three. I ain't got much to say about it. The brake run kinda hurt; brace yourself for that I guess.
Dufan's latest addition. It's pretty weird, and cool. Weird enough that I'm gonna go and describe the whole ride experience (spoilers)
So it's an indoor Intamin family coaster with a Wild West horror theme — Wild West because it happens to be in the park's America section. It's something about a wealthy family of werewolf hunters? Or the family were the werewolves? I really don't remember. The queue is a hall of sad concrete littered with framed pictures of either random things from the Old West or Google results for "hantu seram". I feel like I'm being rude now but they really could've at least put some wallpaper up.
Anyhow, the ride. After boarding the cute old-timey-car trains you head on into the dark unknown. This is where it gets weird: it becomes very apparent that you're just in a big dark warehouse. The ride isn't dark enough to conceal that; you can see the upcoming dark ride scenes and the entire coaster track. Now, this would be a problem, if not for the fact that they have a fog machine on the ground below that makes it feel like you're in another fucking dimension, or a dream sequence.
Seriously, it sounds dumb but really, the effect works. It doesn't show up in any footage so you'll have to take my word for it. It's the simplest thing but it trips me out and goes with surreality of seeing all this otherwise immersion-breaking, disconnected machinery. Yeah, fuck it, dream sequence, none of this is happening.
Uhh anyway, the dark ride section consists of a four small colorfully lit cut-out scenes on elevated platforms by the side of the track. None are very good, first one is a guy's 19th century room all messed up with claw marks next to a portrait. The next is a bunch of wolves by the fireplace(?), the animatronics are not quality and just bob up their heads up and down. Next you see the werewolf itself! Posing in a room, standing absolutely still. And finally, a whole bunch of wolves in a crate-filled room with the words "DANGER ZONE" affixed to the wall in a wacky font.
You are then thrust into some coaster action. You're taken up a tire launch instead of a simple lift, the train speed-slithers its way to a dead end, where once again you meet the werewolf, still not giving enough of a shit to move. serigala.mp3 is played and you go backwards. You take a fun dip down in reverse before stopping again. As the track switches, red wolf eyes appear around you, which would be cool if it was dark. You finally move forward to go through the coaster section. It's a bunch of fast turns up and down, pretty fun, but not much to say. End of ride.
Just one more thing. I should also mention the time I got evacuated from this ride. It was, in fact, my first evac, and I was very excited. That is all.
Nothing happened in 2021.
Aw yeah, a Vekoma Boomerang, brought in to Trans Studio Cibubur from Knott's Berry Farm. Boomerangs, made by Dutch manufacturer Vekoma, are a very common stock model of coaster. You're lifted backwards up a spike (long bit of track that goes up), drop into the cobra roll and loop, go up the other spike, do the whole thing in reverse. This one, of course, has a twist, being that it's on a mall rooftop.
They also made new trains for this ride. The old one at Knott's was like auctioned off? One of the cars is in someone's garage now. Anyways you'll just have to believe me when I say the new trains were made by Vekoma, as evidenced by their logo which I saw on the restraints. I didn't get a picture. Sorry. I'll do it next time.
Ride is probably your run of the mill Boomerang, disregarding the location. My favorite part was the loop on the way back which felt more intense than the run forward.
Oh and one time, I stayed at the Transpark apartment, where the view from my window was this:
Nothing.
Well, it would've been Thunder Dolphin if we didn't go in January... but nope, nothing yet.
blazerlazer Credit List
| No. | Name | Park | Status | Manufacturer | Model | First ride | Last ride |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Alap-alap | Dunia Fantasi, Indonesia | Operating since 1986 | Zierer | Tivoli | 03/2014 | 03/2014 |
| 2. | Halilintar | Dunia Fantasi, Indonesia | Operating since 1986 | Arrow Dynamics | Corkscrew | 03/2014 | 11/2021 |
| 3. | Harvest Time | Jungleland, Indonesia | Operating since 2013 | Zierer | Force | 2014 | 2014 |
| 4. | Ghoster Coaster | Puriland, Indonesia | Defunct, 1997-2020 | Zierer | Tivoli | 2014 | 2014 |
| 5. | Spinning Coaster | Jatim Park, Indonesia | Defunct, 2005-2019 | Golden Horse | Spinning Coaster | 2016 | 2016 |
| 6. | Animal Coaster | Batu Secret Zoo, Indonesia | Operating since 2011 | Hopkins & Pearce | Wooden Mouse | 2016 | 2016 |
| 7. | Racing Coaster | Trans Studio Bandung, Indonesia | Operating since 2011 | Premier | Launched | 2016 | 11/2022 |
| 8. | Fujiyama | Fuji Q Highland, Japan | Operating since 1996 | TOGO | Sitdown | 07/2017 | 07/2017 |
| 9. | Eejanaika | Fuji Q Highland, Japan | Operating since 2006 | S&S | 4D | 07/2017 | 07/2017 |
| 10. | Takabisha | Fuji Q Highland, Japan | Operating since 2011 | Gerstlauer | Eurofighter | 07/2017 | 07/2017 |
| 11. | Bledek Coaster | Suroboyo Carnival Park, Indonesia | Defunct, 2014-2018 | TOGO | Looping Mouse | 06/2018 | 06/2018 |
| 12. | Supersonic Odyssey | Berjaya Times Square, Malaysia | Operating since 2003 | Intamin | Multi Inversion | 12/2018 | 12/2018 |
| 13. | Snake Coaster | Jungleland, Indonesia | Operating since 2017-2018 | Zierer | Force | 01/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 14. | Hair Raiser | Ocean Park, Hong Kong | Operating | B&M | Floorless | 04/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 15. | The Dragon | Ocean Park, Hong Kong | Defunct, 1984-2021 | Arrow Dynamics | Looping | 04/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 16. | Wild West Mine Train | Ocean Park, Hong Kong | Defunct, 1999-2021 | Zamperla | Family Coaster | 04/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 17. | Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars | Hong Kong Disneyland, Hong Kong | Operating since 2012 | Vekoma | Family | 04/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 18. | RC Racer | Hong Kong Disneyland, Hong Kong | Operating | Intamin | Surfrider | 04/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 19. | Hyperspace Mountain | Hong Kong Disneyland, Hong Kong | Operating since 2005 | Vekoma | Family | 04/2019 | 04/2019 |
| 20. | Alien Taxi | Trans Studio Cibubur, Indonesia | Operating since 2019 | Maurer | Spinning | 06/2019 | 08/2022 |
| 21. | Bat Glider | Trans Studio Cibubur, Indonesia | Operating since 2019 | Caripro | Batflyer | 06/2019 | 06/2019 |
| 22. | Kereta Misteri | Dunia Fantasi, Indonesia | Operating since 2019 | Intamin | Family Launch | 03/2020 | 11/2021 |
| 23. | Boomerang Hyper Coaster | Trans Studio Cibubur, Indonesia | Operating since 14/05/2021 | Vekoma | Boomerang | 08/2022 | 08/2022 |
I love roller coasters